Mountain Room Escapes: Alpine Ski Lodge (Big Bear)

We visited Big Bear, and just did Escape Rooms

Your ski trip to the Sleepy Forest Alpine Ski Lodge was supposed to be uneventful. But the biggest storm of the century hit just as you arrived! You and the other guests are now trapped within the lodge’s lobby; snowed in and desperate to get out! Will you escape before the cold truly sets in?

Based in Palm Springs for a week and already having exhausted the escape rooms there we looked where the closest other rooms were, Big Bear. A friend had recommended Big Bear as a must-see so we thought this was a good excuse to go, especially as there was no snow on the roads.

A bit of an odd booking system for this place, you go online and ‘book’ your slot but then you have to wait for your booking to get confirmed. At the time of visiting they had two rooms so we booked both leaving a very small gap between them, I then realised they were in two different locations in the town. The GM was on the ball and responded to my frantic Facebook message in no time at all saying all was fine and they would make it work (it helped it was a slow day).

We arrived at the location just outside of Big Bear and it felt more like turning up at an old motel than an escape room, but that added to it. The waiting room was filled with A4 pieces of paper that previous teams had drawn team logos on showing off their successes, or failures. It just had a very family friendly feel to the whole place.

Once in the room we realised there was quite a lot of things to look at for a team of two and we got to hunting around. There was a good flow to the room and it was quite easy to see what we needed to do in order to progress.

We did get thrown off a couple of times as we founds things which would be needed later or we found only part of the item. As one point we felt like we were blitzing through the game but then we hit a wall and needed a clue.

In the whole room there were two things that probably frustrated us, but other people may find them their favourite bits so I wouldn’t be too harsh on the game. There was also one bit that took a bit of logical thinking and Liz got it straight away – I couldn’t believe I couldn’t work out something so obvious!

This room felt like it kept on going, we thought we were nearly done and then we realised there was more to do, which is both good and bad and certainly adds to the pressure.

In summary this is a basic room but if you’re in Big Bear and fancy a room then it is fun, although I’d recommend their other room ‘Escape the Cabin’ over this one. There was one cool effect in the room though that we particularly enjoyed and found ourselves just standing with smiles on our faces while taking in what was happening.

PUZZLES

This is firmly a first gen room with padlocks in many places so if you don’t like them then this probably isn’t the room for you. However, it is still a fun room and although not our favourite we’re still glad we did it. One or two of the puzzles were a bit tricky especially one relating to listening, which Liz got very stressed/mad at, but for the most part the puzzles were easy enough and there was a lot of looking around the room to find things that had been hidden.

IMMERSION/ROOM DESIGN

I’ve been on a ski holiday or two so I could buy in to the fact that we were in a ski lodge. The room looked like a pretty cheap set up and some things were showing signs of wear, but everything in the room was topical and on theme.

GM/CLUE SYSTEM

The GM was attentive and fun and we got clues when we asked for them and nudges when he thought we needed them. They were delivered over a speaker system, but the only negative was that it sounded like they were sent using some form of text-to-speech software (Siri?) so it was quite hard to understand exactly what was being said.

ANYTHING ELSE

If you complete the room with enough time to spare there is an additional bonus room which you can do to use up your allotted 60:13. One thing to note is that the toilets are behind the room so if you need to go you will have to walk through the room before you start or go during the game.

Success / Failure

Final Rating: